Many disease states result from insufficient hematopoiesis generally, or insufficient hematopoiesis in one or more blood cell types or blood lineages. Still other disease states result from dysfunction in one or more lineages of the hematopoietic system, such as leukemia. Moreover, many treatments that are given to an individual to combat certain disease states, such as cancer, incidentally decrease the individual's blood supply and/or can lead to bone marrow failure. The toxic hematopoietic side effects of these treatments, therefore, decrease the likelihood of the treatment being successful, and often are the limiting effect that results in cessation of treatment.
Thus, there is a need to develop therapies that can restore hematopoiesis and alleviate hematopoietic deficiencies. Such therapies would be capable of maintaining, stimulating and/or modulating the blood supply, and also would be useful as an ancillary therapy given to decrease the toxic effects of a primary therapy, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy.